Post-menopause health
I am asked so often by postmenopausal women, "Do I still need to look after myself? Everything's over. I feel fine now. Do I still need to keep on with my supplements and self-care?" And the answer is a huge “yes!”
In post-menopause, some conditions, such as cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis, can become more prevalent, and these can have a huge impact on your health as you get older. So, let’s take a closer look at your heart and bone health during and after menopause.
Post-menopause and your heart
According to the British Heart Foundation, oestrogen has a protective effect on the heart. It helps control cholesterol; it reduces the risk of fat building up in the arteries; and it helps to keep your blood vessels healthy. [1]
When your oestrogen levels start to fall during perimenopause and into menopause, unhealthy fat may build up, narrowing blood vessels and putting stress on the heart. All of these things can have an impact on your future heart health. It’s best to start protecting yourself as early as possible, so that by the time you get to post-menopause, you don't need to worry as much about these things.
Things that can help keep your heart healthy
A healthy lifestyle and diet are the main things that can help. Stress has a huge impact on heart health, so this needs to be addressed too. Here are a few heart-healthy strategies to consider:
Eat well: A Mediterranean diet is a really good diet to follow for good heart health. It contains loads of vegetables, healthy fats, oily fish, and small amounts of whole grains, meat and dairy. You need to look at reducing your salt intake, which includes a lot of processed foods. Sugar intake needs to be monitored as well.
Also, make sure that you're getting a varied diet so that you're getting lots of the nutrients your body needs at this time.
Check your blood pressure: You need to look at protecting yourself against high blood pressure. High blood pressure is called ‘the silent disease’ because, very often, there are no obvious symptoms until you get that heart attack. It's really important to keep your stress levels down. I would recommend maybe once every six months getting your blood pressure checked professionally. Please don't go with these home kits unless you have been told to do so by your healthcare professional. The reason for this is that you can become obsessive about it and you can end up testing yourself every week, which is not going to do your stress levels any good at all. Instead, once every six months get your blood pressure checked. In the UK, most pharmacies will offer blood pressure testing.
Keep active: Your heart is also a muscle. You need to keep it working hard to stay healthy. Try to keep active every single day by doing something that gets your heart rate up that little bit.
You don't need to be pounding the streets or going down the gym for hours at a time and then feeling utterly exhausted. There's been research recently looking at how you can exercise hard for just a few minutes a day is enough to support heart health. [2] I don’t do a manic exercise regime; I just do very short, sharp exercises daily, to get my heartbeat going up that little bit. And it certainly works well for me.
Remember to have rest and relaxation too; and consider yoga, tai chi, Pilates or qigong to help with the flexibility aspect.
You can look at herbs such as hawthorn and garlic. Hawthorn is known to help support heart function, and garlic is well known to help to keep the arteries clear and to stop fatty build-up happening.
Post-menopause and your bones
Now, let's take a look at what can happen to your bones during menopause and why they may need extra support after menopause.
Oestrogen is really important for bone health. It helps keep them strong. It keeps calcium in the bones to keep bone density normal. When your oestrogen levels start to fluctuate and fall in perimenopause, this is when you need to start looking after your bones.
Here in the UK, the number of women who end up with hip fractures post-menopause is absolutely huge. And a lot of it is just due to not supporting bone health way back in the perimenopause.
As I mentioned above, falling oestrogen levels can affect the density of the bones. It can make them more fragile, which means that you can get fractures much more easily.
Things that can help keep your bones healthy
Here are a few bone-healthy strategies to consider:
Add calcium and magnesium-rich foods to your diet: These two need to go together because magnesium is like the bus that takes calcium to the bone. Calcium needs transport to get into the bones, and magnesium is one of the good ways of doing that. Just Google ‘calcium and magnesium-rich foods’ to get a list of all the foods that have both of these in, and start introducing them into your diet.
Boost your vitamin D: Vitamin D is also vital for bone health. I live in Scotland and we have not had a lot of sun this year, which will impact that amount of vitamin D that we produce via the effect of sunlight on the skin. So, it's really important that I take a low-dose vitamin D supplement every single day of the year just to make sure that I'm getting enough. It's a difficult one to get in your diet. Dairy products contain vitamin D, but dairy products are low in magnesium. Mushrooms are high in vitamin D, and I found some in supermarkets that actually say rich in vitamin D, so that's something that you can add to your diet. Oily fish is another possible source, as well as eggs.
In terms of supplements, we have our Balance Perimenopause Mineral Drink, which contains calcium, magnesium, and vitamin D. These nutrients are all known to support good bone health. And that can be taken right through perimenopause, menopause and into post-menopause.
A.Vogel Balance Perimenopause Supplement | Helps Support You in 10 Ways | One-a-Day | Strawberry Flavoured
£17.99 (77g (14 x 5.5g)) In Stock
Keep active: Keeping active is important for your bones. You need to look at weight-bearing exercises that encourage the bones to stay strong. That's things like walking, aerobic exercise, and dancing.
HRT and your heart and bones
An important thing to bear in mind is that we know that HRT protects the bones and the heart. But if you're on HRT, that doesn't mean to say that you can just forget about looking after yourself, because there are many women who, for some reason or another, have to stop their HRT at some point. So, you want to maintain your health even though you're getting the added benefits of HRT. For those of you who can't take HRT or don't wish to take HRT, then just looking after yourself and doing these things that I've mentioned can certainly see you into a happy post-menopause.
I hope you found this helpful. Have you done anything to protect your bones and your heart? What have you done? Please share your stories. You know I love to read them. And some of your tips are so helpful and they're going towards helping other people too.
Until next time, take care and have a lovely week.
